greybeard wrote:There is precious little explanation of where these magical numbers come from. There is precious little explanation of how you arrived at the wheels. The descriptive diagramme is not very descriptive - where you start, where you go and why is not well explained.

Yeah, I definitely need to work my writing skills and how to explain things (other than just graphics.) That's why I come to message boards to get help. And ideas.

The examples are very obviously written by someone who knows the system backwards

What's that mean?

Whether the content is going to teach beginners the right or wrong thing is a moot point. I think most beginners will be scared off by the presentation long before they get anything worthwhile out of it.

Page 21 says "I'm assuming if you're looking at this that you are not a beginner."

NEZTOK wrote:Page 21 says "I'm assuming if you're looking at this that you are not a beginner."

Ok, so who is your intended audience?

Why would someone who is NOT a beginner need to have scales explained to them or shown how to play a scale on the fretboard? Those to me are the sort of basic bits of knowledge and skill that define the beginner stage of guitar playing.

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST

Ok, I've been thinking a lot about your method over the past couple of days, and I think I've finally got a grasp on what you're outlining with it. I was wrong about it being guitar based; it really is centered around the structure of scales. But I'm still unconvinced that it's a useful tool. Sorry if what follows seems harsh.

I'll do the pages in order, with my understanding of what you're saying, what isn't clear, and what should be fixed.

Home page: "Have you ever wondered how a major pentatonic scale block can turn into a minor pentatonic scale block by just moving it 4 frets up the fretboard?". That should be 3 frets - that's the distance between a minor keynote (like A) and its relative major (C)

p. 1-6 are all introductory - no comments.

p. 7: you are trying to do too much with a single diagram, and there's no explanation. The innermost ring represents the seven modes of the major scale, with the modes numbered from 0 (Ionian) to 6 (Locrian). It would be nice to have that key displayed on the same page as the diagram, rather than having to refer to addendum Y.

The second ring represents which scale holds C as the second scale degree. Although it's very useful to know which scale degree you happen to be on, there is no ready way to tie this to the tonic of the key: if C is the 2nd, the 1st may be B (for Phrygian or Locrian) or Bb (for all the others). But there's no way to see that from the diagram. And since scales - and hence, scale degrees - are measured from the tonic, this is critical information. "C is the third degree of what scale?" may be a question on an exam, but it's only useful to a player if you know what the FIRST degree is. So to me, this diagram puts the cart before the horse.

There's also the "key", which shows that 8=1, 9=2, 4=11, etc. While this is accurate, it has no bearing on the diagram - which doesn't show an 11 anywhere. Compound intervals (those with numbers of 8 or greater) are of use in extended chords and interval analysis, but no mention of either use.

p. 8: Now we have letter names, but no scale names. You ask us to think of a number, but when I think of a number, I tend to think of "5", not "3+2". But having come up with 5 through 3+2, you have me count the total - five slices clockwise - to find F. And F never comes up again on this page - why is F important?. I find the geometry intriguing... because in your diagram, I will ONLY come up with a total of 5 for labels in the "F slice" (I assume because C is the fifth in F, and in no other key), but this isn't explored.

At any rate, I now need two diagrams (p. 7 & to learn that 3+2 = A. Now you're explaining that C is the 3rd note of A Phrygian. A key showing that the "2" means Phrygian would be helpful. And I'm wondering how I'll know that C is ALSO they third note of A Dorian, A Aeolian, and A Locrian from this process.

p. 9: Now you're telling me that the key of C adds up to 1, and the key of B adds up to 2 "and so on". You seem to be going backwards through the chromatic scale. So I guess that the key of Bb adds up to 3. Now I have to go to p.7 to see what adds up to 3...it's the third slice clockwise. Next I have to go back to p.8 to see if that's Bb. And it's not. It's Ab (and because I've spent a couple of days thinking through your method, I do understand that it's "3" because C is the 3rd note of the key of Ab). But the "and so on" isn't clear; in fact, it's so confusing that I nearly gave up at this point. I'm also mystified by the patterns - #1 is identical to #4, and with no text, I can't see what difference there might be.

p. 10: A summary. You say I'd know that 3+2 starting from C would be the 3rd of Phrygian without looking at Skelcore. Since I've never thought of C as 3+2, no... I wouldn't know that. I also happen to know that C is the 3rd of Aeolian (ABCDEFG) and Dorian (ABCDEF#G) and Locrian (ABbCDEbFG). So I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me. Then you tell me that since it adds up to 5, I should play from diagram 5 above - which gives me C-D-E. Which is not Phrygian, Dorian, or Locrian. You refer me back to Skelcore, which tells me that C is the third of A Phrygian. But diagram 5 takes me to C-D-E, diagram 6 takes me to C-D-Eb, and diagram 7 takes to me C-Db-Eb. There is no connection of the diagrams to the text. You then tell me that all the notes are in the key of F - but diagrams 6 & 7 include notes that are not in the key of F. Finally, you tell me that if I land on F (which does not appear in any of the diagrams), I play "1" from the above charts - none of which have a "1" marked in any fashion.

At this point you have completely lost me. I do not comprehend page 10.

p. 11: just a cartoon. no comment.

p. 12 - 18: circles with pie slices, and different center notes. Absolutely no explanation. I'm guessing these are p. 8 done on different centers. I'm wondering why no sharp or flat notes are used as the center of the chart, or what I'm supposed to do with these.

p. 19: tells me the harmonic minor is hardcore.

p. 20: tells me to alter the patterns as shown. What's the difference between pattern 1 (C-D-Eb) and pattern 4 (also C-D-Eb)? What am I to make of the fact that pattern 1 is the same as pattern 2 on p.9, and pattern 3 is the same as pattern 2? Is it worth the effort to learn your numbering system if it's going to change every time it's shown?

p. 21: 3 more patterns, no text.

p. 22 - 28: more pie slices, this time with the harmonic minor modes. Still no sharps or flats as the center note.

p. 29: you tell me Skelcore will force me to play differently. But at this point I have no idea how.

p. 30: addendum Y, a list of the scales relating to p. 8

p. 31: addendum Z... I have no idea what this is about. You ask me to write out a C scale, then a B scale and ask if it has a C note (no), then a Bb scale - does it have a C note (yes). C will also be found in the scales of Db, Eb, F, G, Ab. I'm not sure what the significance of this is.

My overall problems with your method:

1. I have no idea what problem it addresses. It could only be useful if you ALREADY know the spellings of the scales. If you have that knowledge, p.7 (if presented more clearly) might be a useful reference. But it seems to me you've designed a rather convoluted method of identifying note x as the y degree of scale z, and I can't see any practical use for that.

2. There are lots of graphics without explanation

3. If you do the work required to understand the graphics, you're still addressing only 7/12ths of the notes (there are no charts for Bb, F#, etc)

4. For what limited utility it might have as a reference, it's hard to use - you need a minimum of two charts (p. 7 plus one other) to locate anything.

5. The fretboard diagrams seem to have little or nothing to do with the text

This system is something I've never seen before, and speaking as someone thats come up with their own system of doing things (and spent the last 10 years refining it through teaching it to hundreds of guitar students), I have to admire the creativity. Have to say though, I wouldn't get anything out of it. It's not clear at all, and the smallest effort to apply wrapping your ideas around this, is enough to lose most people.

You might have an idea here, but I'd break it down to the level where a 5 year old could understand it. If you can break everything down one step at a time and make NO assumptive "jumps" that people can easily follow, and then refine that through actually using it in the real world in teaching others, then you might find a way to streamline everything while making it useful.

NoteBoat's written his book, I've written mine and my school curricula, and I think he would agree, that there's a lesson that you (and we have had to) understand when writing for the benefit of others, and that is you have to come down to their level where they are, and build from common ground.

If you try to get people to buy into things at your level, you'll have at best a marginal degree of success.

The last thing that I want to say about methods, is an observation one of my older students made:

"Although it gets you to the right outcome, in between there's still a METHOD that you have to memorize. The problem with methods, is that they are methods, and systems that must be learned in order to learn the thing that you are trying to REALLY learn." And, he's correct.

Wish I had good news for you. I write the book in the early 90's and printed them myself. I sold them through Guitar for The Practicing Musician back then. It was okay, but I realize that back then I had barely struck the tip of the iceberg! It went on to "evolve" to put it lightly, into what I do today. The book is no longer in print, in fact I don't even think I have any copies left. It was done on an old Mac Performa and using Mac Paint for all the diagrams, which I hand drew. Back then I used my Laser Printer and Kinkos comb bound them, and I printed up about 500 each of them, which for a no-nothing like myself, was quite a bit of change invested.

So my "book" is out there, but it's heavily evolved and is more in an "organic" form and found in all of my teaching lessons on my RnBAcademy website. One of the reasons I declined writing a book later on, was because I wanted to be more vested in the students success. Its wierd, but I see it as my obligation to make sure that when someone comes to me for help, they get that help, and I realize that I carry a rather idealistic approach. I didnt want to be another book on someone's shelf, full of other books that were bought with good intentions.

I wanted more hands on assurance that anyone that came to me would leran. A book doesnt require that. You can read it as fast as you wish and even stop reading it. I didn't want that. I'd rather not teach then be included in someone's list of "Oh I have that book and I never finished it". The thing about what I do, is that it's useless if you don't do your part. A book doesn't ensure that you do your part. A school (Like I run here in Texas) does, because there are places that the student has to apply things and respond to what they are learning. All of my students across the world, submit actual responses to the lessons, this way I get immediate feedback as to how they are doing. It's what we call Playing Assignments, and essentially it lets you put these new ideas to use, which is the other side of "Understanding" anything.

I know this is a long winded response and I apologize, but in essence this is why i don't have a book, and probably never will.

Best,

Sean

Last edited by Sean0913 on February 8th, 2011, 1:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

NoteBoat wrote:But it seems to me you've designed a rather convoluted method of identifying note x as the y degree of scale z

OK, I'm ready to get serious again (after a few tranquilizers - sadly, that's true.) I know you don't find any use to identifying note x as the y degree of scale z. But, I find it kinda cool. Do you know of an easier way to do such a thing? Maybe just writing all 7 keys that the note x is in on a staff. All the modes would be there too. Or something...any insight?

NoteBoat wrote:But it seems to me you've designed a rather convoluted method of identifying note x as the y degree of scale z

OK, I'm ready to get serious again (after a few tranquilizers - sadly, that's true.) I know you don't find any use to identifying note x as the y degree of scale z. But, I find it kinda cool. Do you know of an easier way to do such a thing? Maybe just writing all 7 keys that the note x is in on a staff. All the modes would be there too. Or something...any insight?

Intervals. Instantly.

Say I know that V is Mixo, right?

What if it's an F Mixo? Well then Bb is my Parent Major Scale.

Same with notes say I have a C what is C the 6 of? Eb, so I could do that or relative major/minor associations - I to vi.

What if I want to play Ab, as a Lydian, whats my Parent? Eb. Intervals.

A solid understanding of intervals can do the same thing.

Name any note and I can instantly tell you what degree of any scale it is, simply by intervals. At least thats what/how I teach it. And the more you use it the more second nature it becomes.